NativeScript- A short and brief Introduction

Garima Singh
4 min readNov 30, 2020
Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

What exactly is NativeScript?

An open-source framework for building truly native mobile apps with Angular, Vue.js, TypeScript, or JavaScript.

There are quite a few reasons to use cross-platform or hybrid frameworks. For starters, it’s easier to maintain a single code base. Also, existing developer skills can be leveraged to develop apps. Quite a few hybrid frameworks are available for developers. The majority of those are based on Apache Cordova or WebView-based. Then there is C# based Xamarin which is a cross-compiled framework. NativeScript is one such platform.

It currently supports the following stacks:

JavaScript

TypeScript

Angular

Vue

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Why you need NativeScriptNative Performance

Beautiful, accessible, platform-native UI — without WebViews. Define once and let NativeScript adapt to run everywhere, or tailor the UI to specific devices and screens.

Extensible

With NativeScript, you have 100% direct access to all iOS and Android APIs. You can easily reuse CocoaPods and Android SDKs, plus find free plugins, templates, and application samples on the Marketplace.

Easy to learn

Use the web skills you already have to develop truly native apps with JavaScript, CSS, and Native UI markup.

Cross-Platform

Write and deploy native mobile apps for iOS and Android from a single codebase. Use Angular or Vue to share existing web-based code.

Community Driven

NativeScript is surrounded by an enthusiastic and vibrant community. Decisions and direction for the framework come directly from day-to-day real world projects.

Free and Open Source

NativeScript is 100% free and open source, Apache 2 licensed.

Getting Started With NativeScript

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NativeScript is how you build cross-platform, native iOS and Android apps without web views. Use Angular, TypeScript or modern JavaScript to get truly native UI and performance while reusing the skills and the code from your web projects. Get 100% access to native APIs via JavaScript and reuse of packages from npm, CocoaPods and Gradle. Open source and backed by Progress.

Step #1: NativeScript Playground

NativeScript Playground is a browser-based environment for getting started with NativeScript fast. Playground offers a set of comprehensive tutorials that walk you through building a real-world iOS and Android app from scratch.

Step #2: Install the NativeScript Command-Line Interface

Once you have the basics of NativeScript down in Playground, you need to set up a local development environment that lets you build and test your apps locally. To do that you’ll want to go through our documentation on installing the NativeScript command-line interface.

Step #3: Learn the NativeScript Command-Line Interface Basics

Now that you have the NativeScript CLI installed, you’ll want to learn the basics of how the CLI works, including how to run, build, and debug your apps.

Step #4: Join the NativeScript Community

Regardless of what you choose to do next with NativeScript, joining the NativeScript community is a great way to keep up with the latest and greatest in the NativeScript world. Here are some ways you can get involved:

Conclusion

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This was a brief overview of the framework. I would suggest you to take NativeScript for a spin using Playground.

If you encounter any issues getting started with NativeScript, be sure to refer to the official documentation or join their Slack community.

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